Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken
by Sephy-Stabbity
Summary: "She was frail and sickly, sweetling, but she was not weak." Doran Martell tells Elia Sand the story of her namesake. Elia Martell-centric, because I am a one-trick pony, and the trick is Elia.


**Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken**

To the eyes of the Prince of Dorne, his niece could not have been more different from her namesake. Quick and strong and loud, with all her mother's grace and her father's wit, she was never one for lying still and sharing a cup of tea, or poring over an old book, as his sister had liked to do every once in a while.

No, this one took after his brother. Little Elia revelled in the tales of her older sisters' exploits, worshipping them to the point of idolatry. She was always tagging along after Obara, or badgering Sarella for archery lessons, or begging Nymeria to take her into Old Town for a day whenever she passed through with her retinue oh please Nym, just this once, oh please oh please oh pleaseeeeeee.

She loved the older stories too - the ones about the Rhoynish witch queen who had conquered Dorne, or of the brave Dornish princess who had ridden out into the desert to save her lover from Aegon the Conqueror's dragonfire.

It was no surprise then, Doran supposed, that Elia Sand would ask him about her namesake one day.

ooooo

It was unusually cool for a summer night this far south, likely from the rain in the evening, but Elia Martell did not mind. The campfires burning from the army below had long since ceased to entrance her, and she welcomed the relief from the heat that incessantly billowed upwards to the Red Keep.

She had excused herself early from dinner, on account of Aegon teething again. A blatantly obvious lie, but desperation had drove her to it. Rhaegar had left again, with no words as to where he was headed, so at least she did not have to sit through his moody silences, and the wounded looks he gave her every once in while, at her continued coldness towards him. Her father in-law was there, though, with his words carefully designed to cut deeper than knives.And worst of all, Elia had not wanted to face the pitying smiles and the whispered gossip that quickly silenced whenever she happened upon them.

"...run off with that northron waif, I hear..."

"...wonder what she gone done to scare him off like that..."

"...and her with two small children too..."

"...poor mite..."

As if she were nothing without Rhaegar, she thought bitterly, as she settled her son in his crib. As if she had never felt the joy of riding through the Dornish desert, with the wind racing against her skin and Oberyn laughing in front, as he outraced her yet again. As though she had never sat cosseted in Sunspear's library with Doran during the rare days of rain, discussing Daeron's conquest and where exactly the Young Dragon's plan had begun to go wrong.

She turned her face to the window, unwilling to let her son see her sudden anger.

As if she had not been Elia Martell of Dorne, long before she ever became Elia Targaryen.

-  
"Was she a warrior, like Obara?" his niece asked eagerly. "Or Nym!" she fairly shrieked out the name in excitement. "I bet she was like Nym, wasn't she, uncle - m'lord - your grace?" she stumbled to find the correct honorific.

"She looked a little like Nymeria," the prince agreed.

"Jeyne Fowler says Nym once won a fight with an arm tied behind her back," Elia announced to him proudly, as though the achievement had been her own. "Could Aunt Elia do that?"

"No," the prince answered honestly after a moment of thoughtful silence. "She preferred to leave battles to her beloved younger brother. She was prone to sickness, you must understand, and often bedridden."

"Weak," Elia finished for him, her face falling in disappointment and lips sticking out in a pout, when she realized this story was not going in the way she wanted.

"No," the prince corrected her gently. "She was frail and sickly, sweetling, but she was not weak."

ooooo

It was at that moment, then and there, as she stared out the window willing the tears to not come, that all seven hells broke loose.

For a heart-stopping moment, she thought it might be wildfire, as the ground below exploded. But even from the distance, she could make out the great big banners of red that rode out of the smoke.

Red for dragons. Red for blood.

She leaned further out the window, trying to make out if Rhaegar was riding at the head.

No. Realization crept in slowly as Elia noted the golden sigils on the banners.

Red for lions.

"She fought like a tigress in her last minutes against the Mountain, you know."

-  
And then came a scream came from the nursery below, the sheer terror in it piercing through the din. Elia froze, fear and anguish turning her entire body cold. Oh gods be good. Rhaenys. No, no, no. Tears came unbidden to her eyes, so fast that she could not even think to stop them.

Seeing his mother so distressed, Aegon began to wail. She hushed him quickly, sparing a fearful glance at the door as she picked him up and rocked him gently.

-  
"Like a tigress!" Elia repeated his words happily, her misgivings about her namesake falling away, as his story unfolded.

"Like a warrior," Doran quoted absently from memory, his mind going back to the ravens that had come flooding into Sunspear all at the same time, all fighting each other for position, and all carrying the same message. A murder to announce a murder.

(In his mind he remembered the reports as though he had been there himself, had read each raven from the Red Keep over and over again, until the words were burned into his memory.)

"A warrior queen," Elia breathed. "Like Queen Nymeria of the Rhoyne, uncle!"

There was a long moment when the Prince of Dorne stared at his young niece as she waited for his reply, her hands propping up her face and her eyes shining like stars as she gazed up beyond him, to a vision only she could she.

"Yes, like Queen Nymeria," he murmured finally. But without the spears and the shields, little love, and without twenty thousand men at her back to protect her from every harm.

"And then?" Elia Sand asked eagerly.  
ooooo-

Elia shivered half from fear and half from the night's cold, as the sound of methodical battering came from the other side of the door. Already the furniture she had arranged against it on her side showed signs of giving way under the strain.

She watched the chairs shift inexorably forward, inch by inch, and the fear in her heart turned to cold certainty.

So be it, then.

Clutching Aegon closer to her chest, she grabbed the metal candleholder from the reading table - the closest thing to a weapon in the room.

I am a Martell of Dorne. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken.

She turned to face the door and her teeth bared involuntarily in a silent rictus of defiance.

You will find no easy pickings here, my lord.

ooooo

"And then?" the question came from Elia more intently at Doran's continued silence, and he realized then that his young niece had failed to understand the full meaning of his words.

"...That's a story for another night, sweetling." Gently, the Prince of Dorne helped his niece up to her feet. "Go along to your mother. She's waiting."

She protested, of course, at this abrupt ending to his story, but Doran barely heard her, as the old memories came flooding back to him.

(And then there was Rhaenys, face mangled beyond recognition, her pet cat cradled protectively in her arms. Elia, whose son's blood caked on her still-warm body. And the Mountain standing above them, with numerous cuts on his face from where Elia's nails had scratched him, had clawed at him like a tigress.)

He felt a familiar weariness seep into his bones again, born of the grief and anger that had always simmered under the surface. Gods be good, surely their lives should have left more of a mark on this world , than mere scratches on the body of a monster.

"Another night, sweetling," he repeated, breaking out of his reverie as he heard Ellaria calling for her daughter. "Go along now."

Elia's protests died down, as she caught the sharp scent of Dornish spices cooking from her mother's direction. She ran as fast as her stubby legs could carry her towards Ellaria's scolding voice, Doran's story already half-forgotten.

The Prince of Dorne watched her go, his lips unconsciously twisting into a farce of a smile.

You were named after a woman as sweet as summer, little love, and as good as the gods themselves. Most men never saw beyond her frailty and sickness, but the dragon prince could not bend her to his will, the Mad King could never make bow down before him, and even the Mountain could not break her spirit.

ooooo

A/N: Elia Martell just gives me all the feels :)


End file.
